Cooked - A Natural History of Transformat Part 38

6 Pagnini, Cristiano, et al., "Probiotics Promote Gut Health Through Stimulation of Epithelial Innate Immunity," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 No. 1 (2010): 45459.

7 Saikali, Joumana, et al., "Fermented Milks, Probiotic Cultures, and Colon Cancer," Nutrition and Cancer 49 No. 1 (2004): 1424.

8 Messaoudi, Michael, et al., "Beneficial Psychological Effects of a Probiotic Formulation (Lactobacillus helveticus R0052 and Bifidobacterium longum R0175) in Healthy Human Volunteers," Gut Microbes 2 No. 4 (2011): 25661.

9 Falagas, M. E., et al., "Probiotics for the Treatment of Women with Bacterial Vaginosis," Clinical Microbiology and Infection 13 No. 7 (2007): 65764.

10 Brashears, M. M., et al., "Prevalence of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 and Performance by Beef Feedlot Cattle Given Lactobacillus Direct-Fed Microbials," Journal of Food Protection 66 No. 5 (2003): 74854.

11 Coillie, E. Van, et al., "Identification of Lactobacilli Isolated from the Cloaca and v.a.g.i.n.a of Laying Hens and Characterization for Potential Use as Probiotics to Control Salmonella Enteritidis," Journal of Applied Microbiology 102 No. 4 (2007): 1095106.

12 Corridoni, Daniele, et al., "Probiotic Bacteria Regulate Intestinal Epithelial Permeability in Experimental Ileitis by a TNF-Dependent Mechanism," PloS One 7 No. 7 (2012): e42067.

* Smillie, Chris S., et al., "Ecology Drives a Global Network of Gene Exchange Connecting the Human Microbiome," Nature 480 (2011): 24144. Arias, Maria Cecilia, et al., "Eukaryote to Gut Bacteria Transfer of a Glycoside Hydrolase Gene Essential for Starch Breakdown in Plants," Mobile Genetic Elements 2 No. 2 (2012): 8187.

And possibly for fermenting your own vegetables at home, according to the CDC's Kimmons: "Ideally, you want to grow your own bacteria at home, since [these local strains] will best reflect the world you live in."

FERMENT II. ANIMAL

* Perkin and Strachan, "Which Aspects of the Farming Lifestyle."

* There are additional reasons that may explain why people have become more vulnerable to pathogens over time: The population is older; also, a substantial number of people have had their immune systems compromised by chemotherapy and immune-suppressant drugs.

* Many cheese makers today use "vegetable rennets"-chymosin produced by a genetically engineered bacterium, mold, or a yeast.

* When the weather is cold, another cheese maker told me, calves need more energy to keep themselves warm, so on those days the proportion of fat in their mother's milk increases.

* Perhaps this explains why so many of the foods thought to best express terroir-such as wine and cheese-are products of fermentation.

* See the footnote on page 325 describing the process of fermentation in the human v.a.g.i.n.a.

* Under current regulations, only raw-milk cheeses that have been aged a minimum of sixty days may be sold in the United States, and you would not want to eat a Camembert quite that old-it would presumably have liquefied by then and begun to stink beyond approach. The theory behind this rule is that the aging process should render the cheese safer, but it now appears there is little scientific basis for this belief.

* The exception that proves the rule is tears, which only humans produce, and which do not disgust.

Of course, there is also an adaptive value in being repulsed by putrefying matter, corpses, and feces: These things often harbor pathogens.

* When I tried to revisit Stillwaggon's Web site in August 2012, the link no longer worked.

FERMENT III. ALCOHOL

* "Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare [it].When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: [but] thou hast kept the good wine until now.

"This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." (John 2:711)

* One species of fruit fly-Drosophila melanogaster-consumes alcohol as a way to medicate itself; the alcohol poisons a tiny parasitic wasp in its gut that otherwise would kill the fly. The alcohol kills the wasp by causing its internal organs to shoot out of its a.n.u.s. Milan, Neil F., et al., "Alcohol Consumption as Self-Medication Against Blood-Borne Parasites in the Fruit Fly," Current Biology 22 No. 6 (2012): 48893.

* After it runs out of sugars to ferment, S. cerevisiae can switch on an enzyme that allows it to live off the ethanol it has produced, yet another neat trick.

* Some brewers today regard the fifteenth-century German beer laws that mandated hops as the only permissible additive as a regrettable victory in an earlier war on drugs. Compared with some of the other psychoactive plants that once were added to beer, hops, which is a sedative distantly related to cannabis, is fairly mild.

* Libkind, Diego, et al., "Microbe Domestication and the Identification of the Wild Genetic Stock of Lager-Brewing Yeast," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 No. 35 (2011): 1453944.

* Horace got at this plasticity in the following lines he addressed to a forty-year-old cask of wine (dating from the year of his birth): "Whether you bear in yourself complaints or laughter, or whether you contain strife and mad love or friendly sleep, O faithful cask."

* Though best known as the bringer of wine to humankind, Dionysus was also credited with giving us beer and honey.

* Or at least nonexternal chemical ways, because who knows how meditation, fasting, risk, or extreme physical exertion work their effects on consciousness?

* For more on the Romantic imagination and intoxication, see David Lenson's important book, On Drugs (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1995), and also his Hess Family Lecture, "The High Imagination," at the University of Virginia, April 29, 1999. See also my discussion on plant drugs and the arts in the marijuana section of The Botany of Desire (New York: Random House, 2001).